Between 2% and 3% of the populations of Europe and of the United States suffers from Psoriasis Vulgaris. Since a genetic defect is involved, no therapeutic method can assure a long term cure. All courses of treatment aim, therefore, at freedom from symptoms for the longest possible time, as a rule 6-12 months.
Psoriasis, which according to experience, always recurs and which in particularly serious cases can even be life threatening, generally requires treating patients intermittently during their entire lifetime. The appearance of the disease in youth thus necessitates treatment spanning decades. Treatment risk increases with treatment length, since common substances such as cortico-steroids evidence cumulative long term side effects. This corresponds to years of ultraviolet radiation in cases of dermatosis and melanoma, the so-called light-induced cancer.
The search for a natural risk-free treatment has, therefore, intensified in recent years. The most well known example is the Dead Sea bath treatment, which was known in antiquity. Dead Sea water contains about 26% by weight of mixed salts and solids. It is known from various studies, for example, E. Azizi et al, Israeli Journal of Medical Sciences, 18, p. 267 (1982) that in the treatment of psoriasis and other skin diseases an average of about 65% of patients given immersion treatments in Dead Sea water are rendered free of symptoms. In addition, 20% show an improvement such that in about 85% of the cases a positive effect is evident. Tests performed under my direction using solutions prepared by reconstituting salt mixtures obtained from Dead Sea salt deposits have exhibited approximately the same results.
This treatment has three critical disadvantages. First, the high cost of travel makes it possible only for a few. Second, older patients, especially, suffer from the hot, unaccustomed climate and the strains of the trip. Third, allergies and reactions attributed to the presence of impurities such as organic compounds, bitumens and oil tars, sewage residues and organic decomposition products are commonplace. It is well known that the Dead Sea has no drainage and has served for millenia as an irreversible repository for wastes, including in recent years hotel and industrial waste and last but not least the scale of thousands of Psoriasis sufferers. Since 1978 the Dead Sea has been considered chemically unbalanced. The lack of suitable microorganisms in the highly concentrated salt solution prevents waste materials from biodegrading.
The shipment of Dead Sea waters, including waters evaporated to dryness, is not practical on the basis of costs and due to energy requirements and corrosion problems. Nor would this method solve the problems of pollution, allergic and other reactions. The same applies to salts which could be obtained from salt formations, evaporation residues, and naturally occurring deposits in the Dead Sea. These are differentiated from the object of this patent application, among other ways, in that we are dealing with natural products with variable composition and above all variable purity, which contain or at any time could contain undefined materials or unknown materials.
It is also known that a certain percentage of patients must limit or interrupt the Dead Sea treatment, since in addition to allergies, other complaints such as circulatory problems arise, or the illness itself becomes worse.
The task of the present invention would thus be to find a solution which has comparable effectiveness without these disadvantages.